The man laughed. “Do you think O’Day knew what she was getting herself into tonight?” he asked.

“I always wonder what they think. They must not believe I am what I am,” Bunny said. The reporter laughed and slapped her on the shoulder.

“What’s next?” he asked.

“Oh, I’ll keep handing out the thrashings,” Bunny said with a rascal’s grin.

* * *

—

Ray and I did not stay for the main event, but trailed Bunny back to her dressing room. We waited on a black leather couch while the doctor checked Bunny over. I was shocked to see that she kept spitting blood into a white coffee cup. I had not seen the other girl hit her in the face, certainly not hard enough to loosen any teeth. The doctor was fussing over her ear.

“If you don’t want me to drain it now, just go in and get it drained tomorrow.”

Bunny grunted.

He felt up and down her ribs. He palpated her kidneys, felt around in her abdomen, though how he could feel anything through her Ninja Turtle abs was a mystery to me. “Let me see the hands,” he said, and Bunny gave him her hands, which were still wrapped, and he unraveled the gauze and tape as delicately as if her fingers were broken birds. I was watching, curious, then had to look away as I understood what I was seeing. Her knuckles were so swollen that the backs of her hands bulged, the skin pink as raw pork.

“Jesus,” I said.

“That’s probably fractured,” the doctor said, feeling for the bones in her hand through the swelling.

“I know,” Bunny said, “I felt it go.”

“But the bone’s still in place. Just a splint for now and then you can see in a couple days. Now, I saw you walk out of there, let’s talk about your left foot.”

“Are you thinking burgers?” Ray asked.

“Steaks,” Bunny said.

“Steaks!” Ray cried, delighted. He began consulting his phone, clearly looking for a good steak house nearby, but he kept raising and lowering the phone to his face, like trying to scan a difficult bar code at the grocery store. “I can’t fucking see,” he said. “Can you look at this please?” and he handed his phone to me.

I found us a decent steak house in midtown and Bunny took an icy shower then had various parts of her wrapped. She hurt so badly that Ray had to tie her shoes for her, zip and button her pants. She was slow and impassive as a zombie.

“You won,” I said. I guess I had expected her to be happy.

“Yeah,” she said. “Wasn’t much of a fight, though.”

“It was a great fight,” Ray said.

“There’s just no one really,” Bunny said. Her brow furrowed and she looked confused, but then I realized she was about to start crying. “There’s no one,” she said again.

Ray wrapped his arm around her shoulders and guided her out and down the hall. “Shhh…we just need to get you some food.” He turned to me and said, “She’s like this sometimes. All the adrenaline. She literally has no serotonin left in her little noggin.”

* * *

—

The restaurant was a yokel’s cheesy fantasy of a fancy New York steak house. Both Bunny and Ray liked it immediately, and I felt briefly proud of my choice. I knew them well, knew them still.

Bunny ordered two Long Island Iced Teas and a shrimp cocktail to start, Ray got a Seven & Seven, and I ordered a glass of Sauvignon Blanc. “Can I put in more food now, though?” Bunny asked anxiously. The server, a pretty redhead who was probably an actress, said of course. “Then I’ll have the filet and can I also get the chicken breast, and can I also get a side of fries, and does it come with bread? Do you bring out bread?”

“Yes,” the server said, “we bring out a basket of bread.”

“Can you make sure they bring out two?” Bunny asked. Her right cheek was swelling, and the skin was stretched and glossy in the dim light of the steak house.

“Of course,” the waitress said.

“Or you can just put double the amount of rolls in a single basket,” Bunny said helpfully. “You’re really pretty.”

“Thank you,” the waitress said, backing away from the table, her check pad held tight.

“Well,” Ray said, “I’m just so proud of you, Bunny. That was an incredible fight. You’ve trained so hard. And now it’s over, and it’s done.”

“Shut up,” she said, and just looked at her swollen hands on the table.

“She doesn’t really mean that,” Ray said softly to me. “She can’t help it.”

“I said shut up!” she moaned.

Just then a busboy scurried over with a basket overflowing with rolls, and Bunny snatched one before he had even set it down.

“That’s good,” Ray said, “just eat.”

“Shut up,” she said with her mouth full.

So we didn’t speak, and we just ate rolls. I had the sense that Bunny was concentrating hard on just trying to keep it together in the restaurant. Our drinks came. Bunny downed the first Long Island in a few gulps and after that she visibly relaxed.

“You feeling better?” Ray asked.

“Not yet,” Bunny said, waving her hand at him as if to shoo him away. This was the first time I had seen her treat Ray badly in our whole lives, and to be honest I was enjoying it a tiny bit. She still didn’t like to look either of us in the eye, and she didn’t want us to talk either.

“Well, Michael,” Ray said, keeping his voice down in an effort not to upset Bunny, “so tell me what it is you do again? I mean, you’re getting a PhD, I remember that much, but what do you study?”

“I study evolutionary biology,” I said, “which is—”

“Boring?” Bunny asked. “You’re both fucking boring.”

Ray looked at me apologetically and pantomimed zipping his lips shut. Even I, who had only the most pop-culture understanding of head injuries, knew that concussions could cause belligerence and temper issues. It seemed so obvious to me that Bunny’s brain had been re-traumatized by the fight. Why had the doctor let her go? Why had he looked at her hands, at her feet, at her ribs, and not at this, this most obvious thing? We shouldn’t be at a steak house, we should be at the hospital.

But after the shrimp, which Ray and I did not attempt to share with her, and about halfway through the steak, which Ray had to cut up for her, her hands were so fractured and swollen, Bunny seemed to come around.